St. Colman Mac Ui Cluasigh of Cork

6 May

Died 7th century. This Saint Colman was a professor at Cork. About 664,
he wrote a prayer in verse (or 'lorica') seeking
protection for the yellow plague that killed one-third of Ireland's
population. He took his students to an island in the ocean to escape
the pestilence. En route they chanted the prayer, which is believed to
be the only extant writing from
Finbarr's (f.d. July 4)
school at Cork.
The prayer was included in Kathleen Hoagland's 1000 Years of Irish
Poetry published November 1999
(D'Arcy,
Healy,
Hoagland).